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Feb 6, 2012

Blunders to Avoid Designing Magic Training

To become a mighty mage, your character
needs training. Mere talent isn’t
enough.

Like in any other field, success in magic comes from a combination of
natural gift, determination,
study, and practice. It's similar to writing: you can have the greatest
natural literary gift in the world, but unless you learn the craft and actually
practice writing, you won't achieve your potential.

Give your magician character a backstory
which includes training, or send him (I'll use the male pronoun for this
article, but everything I say applies to either gender) to magical school.

TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES

1. School of Magic

Your novel may have a school of magic for
children, a college of magic, a mage academy, or even a university offering
postgraduate degrees in comparative magic and magical anthropology. Students
sign up for full-time study, most likely on a tuition-and-board basis. If the
novel is set in the modern western world, the classes may meet the requirements
of the national curriculum in addition to providing magical training. In
ancient Egypt, most magicians were priests, and magician-priests were brought
up from a young age at the temple.

Depending on the type of school and level
of education, a magic school is likely to teach subjects of relevance to
magicians: for example sciences (especially botany and chemistry), medicine
(conventional, alternative or complementary), music (especially chanting and drumming), physical education
(especially dancing), philosophy and ethics (especially the ethics of magic
spells), ancient languages (e.g. Latin, Aramaic, Sanskrit), religion (especially if it's a temple
school), astronomy, astrology, mythology, psychology, divination, and more. A
modern school may also have compulsory classes in health and safety.

2. Apprenticeship

A master magician takes one or several
apprentices. The apprenticeship is similar to that of other trades, bound by
similar rules. Typically, the master signs a contract with the youngster's parent,
which indentures the apprentice for several years, and in return, the master
teaches his craft. There may be payment involved; either the parent paying the
master or the master paying the apprentice. The apprentices may live in the
master's house, and practice under his instruction. Typically, they may be put
to hard work, including non-magical chores such as scrubbing floors. This form of magical training has been
prevalent in many cultures and periods, especially for shamans.

3. Self-study

A magician can plausibly teach herself, learning from observation, trial and
error. This suits reclusive,
organised, studious types who have a high education, a lot of self-discipline
and intense curiosity. She needs access to learning materials, as well as the money
and leisure to devote herself to the study. Self-taught magicians are plausible
among the educated wealthy upper classes in the western world from the
Renaissance onwards.
Sometimes, a magician has initially served an apprenticeship and
outgrown her master (or fallen out with him), and is pursuing further studies
on her own.

4. Part-Time Study

Although it takes several years of
full-time training to become a professional magician, it's also possible to
practice magic as a hobby, and to devote only a few hours every week to
training. The part-time path is particularly plausible in the modern world,
where many adults take up magic while earning their bread from a day-job. Many
organisations offer part-time classes: community colleges, Pagan religious
groups, New Age societies. Classes may be in classroom environments, by
correspondence, or online. In about a year, the student can achieve enough
skill to work a little magic, and this may be all a hobbyist wants. If she
wishes to go further, then decades of part-time study can make her a magician
of significant power.

5. Informal Learning

Non-professional magicians may pass on
their skills informally, especially among family members. For example, a mother
may teach her daughter a few things she picked up from her own mother, and make
the little girl practice it until she gets it right. The range of applications
is limited, typically involving skills of practical everyday use, such as how
to make the cow give more milk and how to make the potatoes boil faster. This type of magic is often called
'folk magic'. It won't equip the student to battle the sorcerous evil overlord
and save the world.

CANDIDATE SELECTION

Schools, universities and masters are
choosy about the students and apprentices they take. Before a candidate is
accepted for training, there will be an interview and an aptitude test.
Typically, the teacher will assess some or all of the following:
When testing future apprentices, magicians may check for one or all of the
following:

In addition to the candidates character and
aptitude, other factors may play a
role, such as money, politics and connections. A college may give preference to
the offspring of distinguished alumni, and a master may take on the apprentice
whose parents pay most.

THE DAILY GRIND OF LEARNING

Magic requires a lot of practice, which
students may find tedious. Every
spell needs to be drilled and repeated, perhaps hundreds of times. There'll be
a lot of visualising exercises, sitting still for an hour while keeping an
imagined image of a yellow brick or a red flame in the mind's eye. Some forms
of magic involve a lot of rote learning and recitations, others require the
steady stirring of simmering potions at just the right rhythm all night long.
The average teenager will probably hate much of it.

EXAMPLES FROM LITERATURE

Harry Potter by JK Rowling. The children
attend a specialist school,
Hogwarts, for several years, studying several forms of magic and related
subjects. The students at Hogwarts
learn theory, but they also practice a lot, and some scenes show them
practising until they get it right.
Several years of study is appropriate.

Mage Heart by Jane Routley. A historical fantasy novel, a story about a young
girl who grows into her powers as a magician at the same time as she grows into
womanhood. The heroine started her magical training as apprentice to her
adoptive father, a magician. Then she enrolled in a College of Magic for
several years of formal classes. The novel is set during her final year at
college when she takes on a magic job to boost her finances.

Krabat by Otfried Preussler. A powerful YA dark fantasy novel, huge bestseller
in Germany, winner of several literature prizes. It's little known in the
English-speaking world, although it has been translated and published variously
as Krabat and as The Satanic Mill. A boy starts an apprenticeship as a miller,
and is delighted to discover that he'll learn magic at the same time. The dual
apprenticeship - miller and magician - takes several years. Several apprentices
and journeymen work at the mill. Gradually, the boy realises that the magic he
delights in is evil.

With A Single Spell by Lawrence Watt-Evans. An enjoyable, light-hearted,
humorous heroic fantasy. It plays with the idea 'What happens if an
apprenticeship doesn't work out?' An apprentice magician is left stranded when
his master dies. The master had used the apprentice for mundane tasks, always
promising to teach him real magic, but never teaching any. The boy is too old
to apprentice himself to a new trade, and he can't find another master willing
to take him on. The only spell he
knows is how to start a fire. Now he must make his way in the world with no
other skill but arson.

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud.
A beautifully written, witty YA fantasy, highly enjoyable for adults as well.
The government controls use of magic and arranges for talented children to be
adopted by professional, government-approved , magicians. An unusually talented
precocious boy is gets apprenticed to an not-very-good magician. While
pretending to learn at the slow pace set by his master, he secretly teaches
himself more advanced stuff, soon overreaching himself by the summoning a
powerful demon. This is a combination of 'apprenticeship' and 'self-study'.

BLUNDERS TO AVOID

* The protagonist discovers that she has
magical talent, and this makes her a powerful magician... as if magic didn't
require study. That's the
equivalent of getting a black belt in karate without any training, purely on
the basis of natural talent.

* The protagonist discovers an ancient book
of magical which instantly enables him to work spells... as if magic didn't
require practice. That's the equivalent of someone finding a book on Russian
grammar and instantly speaking fluent Russian.

* A master mage or an old witch invites a
child to spend an afternoon with her, and in this time she teaches the kid
everything she knows... as if a lifetime of learning could be crammed into a
few hours. That's the equivalent of
becoming a brain surgeon by spending an afternoon with a brain surgeon.

Rayne has had more than twenty books
published under different pen names, with several publishing houses and in
several languages. Her latest novel, Storm Dancer, is a dark-heroic
fantasy about magic and
demons.

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